


fragments;

by katsukifatale (TrumpetGeek)



Series: yuri!!! on zines [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Snow Queen Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Childhood Friends, Fantasy, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Platonic Relationships, Snow Queen Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-18 10:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrumpetGeek/pseuds/katsukifatale
Summary: The first time Yuri meets Otabek he is eleven years old and there are roses everywhere.





	fragments;

**Author's Note:**

> this was written well over a year ago, for the yoi-fanbook zine which kinda went bust i guess... i was waiting to post it but realized it's probably futile lol. 
> 
> anyway, this was a collaboration with jo, whose amazing art will be linked asap! it's based on the story of the snow queen and is told in a similar fashion, including the fairytale-like style and the seven mini-stories!

****  
  


**❀**

 

**The Snow King**

 

  
In a far-away winter kingdom lived a young king named Georgi. Despite vast riches and opportunities his subjects could only dream of, Georgie’s life was a sad and lonely one. By day he found himself surrounded by people who were after their own gain, pressing their agendas and unmalleable regulations onto shoulders made stiff from stress; by night he was faced only with a cold, empty bed and a slumber that promised little rest in its wake.

 

  
  
His only solace came in the form of a soft-voiced angel –his beloved, his betrothed. Anya.

 

  
  
Even on the worst days his mind lingered on her beautiful round face and the sweet upturn of her mouth and the steady weight of her small hands in his, and it was enough to get him through. Each day his affection for her grew, and each day the sun shone a little brighter inside him, until he felt like he could explode with light. They spent many evenings together, cultivating something happy and joyous, and each parting filled him with equal parts contentment and longing.

 

  
  
Love is a beautiful thing, but it is not solid and it cannot be kept. Much like a rose, love can blossom and bloom, or it can wither and die on its stem. Georgi’s love bloomed, but Anya’s –

 

  
  
The day she packed up her things and moved away from Georgi’s kingdom, Georgi ignored the advisors and subjects who demanded his time. He slipped out of the palace and down to the lake, which had been frozen over in the midst of winter and had yet to thaw, and pushed his feet into his well-worn ice skates. The moment his blades kissed the ice he felt the first tear fall from his eye, and then the rest came in quick succession until his vision blurred and his chest ached.

 

  
  
He cried tears filled with ugly things like sadness and jealousy and despair, and when they froze he collected the tiny shards from his cheeks and flung them away in anger, not caring at all for the consequences. The shards flew through the kingdom and beyond on swift winds, and whenever they embedded themselves into someone’s eyes or heart they caused a deep unhappiness to settle over the person like a cloud, freezing their hearts until the numbing cold seeped out over their skin.

 

  
  
When Georgi realized what he had done, it was already too late to reverse the damage.  
  


 

❀

  
**Yuri and Otabek**

 

 

The first time Yuri meets Otabek he is eleven years old and there are roses everywhere.

 

  
  
His grandfather calls him Yurachka and asks him to water the flower boxes. His voice suggests that it’s not a request, so Yuri grudgingly goes, throwing open the windows and mumbling as he works. He digs his fingers into the soil to test its dampness, wincing when the thorns of the roses catch and snag on his sensitive skin. Despite his anger he doesn’t want to overwater or underwater them, because they are important to his grandfather and they are Yuri’s only friends in the whole world.  


 

  
He’s not really one for socializing.

 

  
  
Yuri curses at a particularly cruel thorn and shoves his finger into his mouth to soothe the pain, and nearly jumps out of his skin when a voice floats to him from the house just across from his flower box.

 

  
  
“You are a little too young for that kind of language.”

 

  
  
“Who –who are you?!” Yuri asks, forgetting for a moment that his finger is still in his mouth.

 

  
  
The stranger looks at him with calm, clear eyes. “My name is Otabek. I just moved here from the kingdom of Kazakhstan. I am fourteen years old and I really like music.”

 

  
  
“I am, uh, Yuri Plisetsky,” he says. “I like to dance.”

 

  
  
“We are friends now,” Otabek tells him. “I have to go, but let’s meet tomorrow.”

 

  
  
“Friends,” Yuri repeats to Otabek’s retreating back. He stares at the window long after his new friend is gone.

 

  
  
Otabek comes back the next day, and the day after that, and every day following, even after the sun cools and the cold winds begin to blow from the north. In the winter it becomes too cold for them to keep the windows open, and they spend the winter months playing tic-tac-toe or writing backwards messages to each other on frosted window panes. The only way to meet is to go outside and play in the fluffy snow, but there are days when it’s too cold, and not even the warmth of Yuri’s palm could penetrate the frost on the windows.  


 

  
In the summers they meet halfway between their houses and play amongst the roses with the sun warm on their backs and Yuri, who used to love the winter and all of its quiet beauty, grows to love those warm summer days even more simply because Otabek is with him.

 

  
  
It was during one of these bright summer days that Otabek sits back on his heels while helping Yuri tend to the roses, his eyes blinking rapidly.

 

  
  
“Otabek? Is something wrong?” Yuri asks, pausing with his fingers pressed deep into the soil.

 

  
  
“Everything is fine, Yura,” he says with a frown. “Just something in my eye.”

 

  
  
“Oh, let me see.” Yuri puts his arm around Otabek’s neck and looks into his brown eyes. His friend’s face is flushed a gentle pink, but Yuri looks and looks and sees nothing out of the ordinary. “I think it’s gone?”

 

  
  
Otabek murmurs and they turn back to their task, but Yuri’s concern doesn’t dissipate. Something is clearly wrong. His friend’s face is marred by a frown, and his hands become more and more vicious as they yank the weeds up by their roots. His fingers wrap around the stem of a rose, bending it until it snaps off in his hands, and Yuri makes a distressed noise. Otabek is the only one besides his grandfather who knows how much those flowers mean to him.

 

  
  
“Otabek, stop!”

 

  
  
“Why?” His friend asks. “This rose is clearly bad –look, it’s petals are moldy and discolored. And this one here, it looks half-dead.”

 

  
  
One by one Otabek destroys the garden that he and Yuri have carefully cultivated together, and then he goes into his own house and does not come back out until winter has sunk its bitter claws into the earth. Yuri watches with angry sorrow as his oldest friends wither and die on their stems.  


 

  
-*-

 

  
  
Otabek used to love the summer. It used to signal brightness and the comforting smell of flowers and the warmth of Yuri’s smile; now, though, he thinks only of heat and uncomfortable stickiness and air that is too oppressive. He finds himself looking forward to the cool clarity of winter –the only good season. He doesn’t mind that there are no flowers or greenery –flowers are a waste of space, and everything wilts and dies with time; he doesn’t mind the cold –he feels sharper, more alive with the air stinging at his eyes and his lungs; he doesn’t even think to miss Yuri’s smile –the way his eyes crinkle at the corners makes him look ugly.

 

  
  
All of the things he used to cherish feel like distant memories, and he wonders why he even cherished them at all. His feelings slide away like smoke until there is nothing but him and the snowflakes that dance in the air like bees.

 

  
  
The first time the snow sticks to the ground he tells his family he’s going sledding at the edge of town and leaves without a backward glance.

 

  
  
When he sets his sled down on the fluffy snow he finds that the runners are slick and the thin layer of ice on the surface ease his way. He pushes off down the hill, and soon he finds himself sledding so fast the wind stings at his eyes and cheeks, making his vision blurry. He sleds for a long time without slowing, but the snow is beautiful and perfect and the wind and cold no longer seep into his skin and bones, and he thinks maybe he could sled forever if it’s this much fun.

 

  
  
He comes to a stop once he reaches a massive building that looks like it could be a castle from one of Yuri’s favorite fairy tales. It’s made of some kind of grey stone, and the shingles on the roof are a dark blue color. They show up bright against the white landscape. He doesn’t recognize it at all.

 

  
  
‘Surely I can’t have gone that far,’ he thinks, but as soon as he does, the concern slides from his mind like water through cupped hands.

 

  
  
All of his excited energy from earlier has disappeared, leaving him feeling suddenly drained and tired. He makes his way to the castle door but his limbs are like lead and his eyelids droop. He sits down at the castle steps and tells himself as his eyes drift shut that it’s only for a moment, to rest.

 

  
  
When next he opens his eyes he’s inside, burrowed beneath a set of heavy blankets on a bed so soft it felt like a snow drift. There is a fire roaring at the foot of his bed, but he feels none of its warmth. His body is numb and heavy, and his eye hurts like there is something stuck in it.

 

  
  
“Oh! You’re a wake!”

 

  
  
He looks up and finds a man dressed regally in blues both dark and light, a silver circlet resting at his temples.

 

  
  
“I’m King Georgi,” the man says. He wrings his hands, looking nervous. “I must apologize. I’m afraid that that’s my fault. See, my betrothed left me, and I may or may not have cried. A lot. My tears were filled with bitterness and jealousy, and I wasn’t thinking –I didn’t mean -”

 

  
  
Confused, Otabek follows Georgi’s eyes, which are fixed anxiously on something peeking out just above the blankets. His stomach drops at what he sees, but a moment later the feeling is smoothed away until he feels nothing at all.

 

  
  
His arm is cased in ice.

 

 

 

**❀**

 

**Yuri and the Flowers (His Friends)** **  
**  


 

Yuri is fifteen when Otabek went away with his sled and never returned, and as winter melts into spring he figures that Otabek isn’t coming back at all.

 

  
  
The thought is painful, but once he has it it’s almost like he can’t stop thinking about it because suddenly it’s real. Everyone says that Otabek is dead, that he most likely drowned beneath the ice in the river that flows through town. Some nights Yuri finds himself repeating it like a mantra - _he’s dead he’s dead he’s dead_ \- and he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s trying to convince himself it’s true, or because he refuses to believe it. 

 

  
(He knows. It’s because he doesn’t.)

 

  
  
His grandfather had given him a new pair of ice skates for his birthday as February passed into March. One day he sneaks out with them as his grandfather snores in the living room and makes the trek to the river. He is fifteen –a few scant years from becoming an adult- but he still thinks that, maybe, if he gives the river something important to him, like a sacrifice, it will return Otabek to him. 

 

 

(Something even  _ more _ important.)

 

 

So he stomps down to the water and hurls his skates into the still freezing waters and yells his abuses until his throat goes dry and he’s cycled through all of the combinations of curse words he knows.

 

  
  
His skates float back, wash up on the soft soil that meets the water, and every time he throws them back in just a little further. He’s angry –angry at the river for refusing his sacrifice, angry at himself for thinking it would even work in the first place, and angrier still at Otabek for leaving him. But the river still refuses him, water gently returning his skates in soft waves.

 

  
  
When he returns home his eyes are suspiciously wet but his heart is full of steely determination. The river incident had sown the seeds of doubt, and hope blooms relentlessly in his chest.

 

 

It’s spring and the flowers that Otabek strangled aren’t growing back but Yuri sits with them anyway. He’s heartbroken and lonely but most of all he’s angry angry angry. How could he leave Yuri all alone? How could he not come back?

 

 

One tear slides down his face, and then another. They drip off his chin and into the soil, and beneath Yuri’s grief his flower friends stir back to life, sprouts and bulbs shooting up from the dirt and opening up under the warm spring sunlight. White trillium, hibiscus, casablanca lily, peony, camomile, roses, and edelweiss bloom before his eyes.

 

 

“What’s the matter? Why are you crying?” The roses ask.

 

 

“Otabek is dead and gone,” Yuri says sadly. “And the river won’t take my sacrifice.”

 

 

“That’s stupid,” the trillium says. Yuri gets the feeling the flower would be smirking at him, if it could.

 

 

“Shut up,” he hisses.

 

 

“That just means that Otabek must be alive somewhere,” the hibiscus tells him. It’s tiny voice is flat, almost emotionless.

 

 

“You gotta find him!” One of the lilies chirps. “Right, Mickey?”

 

 

“But...how? I don’t know where he went,” Yuri despairs.

 

 

“I’ll bet the crow will be able to help, mon petit lapin,” the edelweiss says. Its petals rustle like a little wink. “The crow flies high above the town, watching. She will know where to go.”

 

 

Yuri thanks his flower friends and slips back into his house. His grandfather is still snoring away in his chair, so Yuri tries to be quiet as he bustles around the kitchen. He makes pirozhki, pours water into a flask, and ties it all up together before tiptoeing off to bed.

 

 

Tomorrow he will find the crow and start his journey to find Otabek at last.   
  


 

 

❀

 

**The Princess and the Prince**

 

 

He meets the crow as he passes through the city gates. 

 

 

“Please, crow, can you tell me about my friend? He went sledding in town and never came back.”

 

 

“Oh yes,” she says, “I know the boy you speak of. He attached his sled to a pure white carriage and they went out the city gates together and later appeared at my prince’s castle. When I left that kingdom he was still there as a guest of the prince and princess.”

 

 

“Oh! Please take me there, Miss Crow!”

 

 

She tells him her name is Yuuko and agrees to take him, though the way is long. They walk for days and days and weeks and weeks, until the spring air turns warm and sultry with summer, and then crisp and spiced with autumn. She leads him over hills, through woods and rivers, and beyond grassy meadows. Each vista is as grand as the last, and they walk until Yuri’s feet become raw with blisters and bruises. When the pirozhki supply runs out Yuuko helps him hunt for edible plants and clean, fresh water.

 

 

(And sometimes she steals food for him too, brings the morsels back from towns he can’t see over the horizon.)

 

 

They punctuate the long days with conversation: she tells him she likes his pretty yellow hair, that she has crow parents who work for the prince and princess they’re going to meet; he tells her about his grandfather, and about the boy he’s crossing the earth to find.

 

 

Eventually, after many months, they come to the landscaped grounds of a palace.

 

 

“Whoa! So big!”

 

 

Yuri’s eyes stick like glue to the extravagant walls and tapestries as they make their way inside, Yuuko nodding to the palace guards to gain entry. Around him swirled dark shadowy forms -dreams, Yuuko says- and he swears he can feel Otabek behind him.

 

 

When they came into the great hall Yuri finds himself face to face with the prince and the princess -an older couple with severe features softened by age and kindness.

 

 

“Hello, Yurachka,” the old woman says. “My name is Princess Lilia, and this is my Prince Yakov. You must have had a long journey to get here.”

 

 

They brought Yuri to a table, and Yuuko’s husband and friends -Takeshi, and Toshiya and Hiroko- flew out of the kitchen with a bowl of steaming pork cutlet and rice balanced between their jet black wings. 

 

 

(It was the best food he’s ever tasted, hands down.)

 

 

(He won’t be telling his grandfather this.)

 

 

After he eats his fill they take him upstairs for a hot bath and a comfortable place to sleep, and his rest is filled with the shadowy dreams he’d seen earlier, and sweet smelling flowers, and Otabek’s soft soft gaze.

 

 

When he leaves a few days later the prince and princess ply him with soft, warm clothes, and comfortable shoes. They weigh him down with food and drink but instead of feeling heavy and tired he feels light, weightless, cared for.

 

 

The crows follow him for a time, wishing him safety and luck on his journey, but in the end he walks on alone.

  
  


 

❀

 

**The Little Robber Girl**

 

 

He walks for weeks more, the autumn cooling into the first tinges of winter. The air becomes drier and cooler as he goes north, the ground more slippery. He passes through many more kingdoms, though none as lovely as Prince Yakov and Princess Lilia, and meets no friends along his way, like he had Yuuko and Takeshi and the other crows. The road is lonely but he doesn’t mind; he will be his own company as long as it takes to find his friend and bring him home.

 

 

He is lost in thought and doesn’t notice the group of people waiting along the road up ahead, until they are already on him.

 

 

“What do we have here?” One of them asks, eying Yuri’s fine clothes and nice shoes.

 

 

“Much too young to be wandering about on his own,” another one says.

 

 

“What the hell are you -” Yuri starts, his jaw tight with anger.

 

 

“Ooh, how cute!” A girl cries. She pushes her way through to stand at the front of the group and grins sharply at Yuri. She has bouncy red hair kept out of her face by a ribbon and is dressed in black pants and a shirt that shows her stomach. She charges forward and before Yuri can so much as squawk she grabs him and lifts him up off his feet. “This one is mine! I’m going to steal his fine clothes and be his new friend!”

 

 

“You can’t say you’re going to steal my stuff  _ and _ be my friend, you hag!”

 

 

Yuri’s harsh words don’t seem to bother her much, as she tugs his arm and pulls him along with her to their camp, just out of sight of the road near a dense wood. He goes along with her quietly. She notices his nervousness and smiles brightly at him.

 

 

“Don’t worry, we won’t kill you as long as you don’t make us mad,” she explains. She sits him down on a makeshift bed and stares at him expectantly. “My name is Mila. Tell me your story.”

 

 

“I, uh -” he hesitates for only a moment, because although she and her peers are obviously robbers she has kind eyes and an air about her that is not unlike an older sister. He tells her about his grandfather, who sits in his chair all day and makes pirozhki for him when he’s good, and about his flowers in the flower box and how they were his only friends before Otabek, and about how Otabek disappeared on a blustery winter day years ago and never returned. He regales her with stories of his friends the crows and of the opulence of Yakov’s and Lilia’s home. She takes his stories in with greedy eyes, and though she makes him nervous he finds he doesn’t mind telling her these things.

 

 

(He is not a prisoner exactly, but neither is he free to leave, and she is the only one he kind of sort of maybe trusts.)

 

 

By the time they are done the sun has fallen below the horizon, and Mila drags him to her bed with him and commands him to sleep. She follows and settles next to him, and when the rest of the camp falls into slumber the robber-girl speaks to him in a whisper.

 

 

“I have seen this Otabek. He is still further north, in a place where it is always winter. The snow and ice are plentiful, and the reindeer can leap through the drifts with abandon.”

 

 

“Who -who has him?” Yuri asks, suddenly desperate. “How can I get there?”

 

 

“It’s the Snow King who lives up there, in a palace made of ice and packed snow. I do not know more than that.

 

 

“Go to sleep, kid. I’ll help you when the time is right.”

 

 

It turns out the time is right in the morning. Mila wakes him up with a brusque shake and tells him in a hurried whisper that the men of the camp are gone, and now is the time for Yuri to escape. Mila returns his nice shoes and fine clothes, and gives him her fur coat to keep him warm on his journey and a pair of blades to attach to the bottom of his shoes.

 

 

“Now go,” she says. “North. Strap these onto your shoes and you will fly over the ice.”

 

 

The sky is still dark and full of stars, and the wind is bitter cold on Yuri’s cheeks, but he can still see Mila’s figure behind them, and somehow her shout of “davai” carries to his ears.

  
  


 

❀

 

**The Two Men**

 

 

Yuri goes and goes and goes, sailing on his ice blades, so far north that even though it should be spring the winter doesn’t end.

 

  
  
The landscape is harsh -long stretches of hard-packed ice and snow decorated with angry slashes of white-capped mountains- and the weather harsher. The wind stings at his cheeks and makes his eyes water, and his hair freezes and snaps off in his hands when he dares wash it. Yuri is thankful for Mila and the gifts she’d given him –the big fur coat to keep him warm and the blades to help speed him along.  


 

  
He goes for miles –hundreds of miles, thousands of miles, forever- until, one bitter day, he sees on the edge of the horizon a dark dot. A trail of smoke leads up into the sky and disperses, and he thinks ‘Oh!’

 

  
  
(Thank goodness.)

 

  
  
(I’m so tired.)

 

  
  
He skates forward with renewed fervor; where his limbs had dragged with exhaustion before, they are now light and buzzing with a kind of hopeful energy. Forward forward forward, and he can see that it’s a hut, and that someone is bustling around inside.

 

  
  
When he gets close enough he raises his aching arm to knock, and when the door opens and a rush of warmth envelops his tired, cold body, he nearly sinks to his knees with relief. The man who answers the door looks at him with big, round brown eyes and such a look of concern that it makes Yuri want to fall into him, but he resists.

 

  
  
(Just barely.)

 

  
  
The man opens the door further and gives him a soft smile, and then ruins everything when he turns to look over his shoulder and says, “Viktor look, a child has come to visit us!”

 

  
  
“Excuse me?!” Yuri barks. The man in the doorway jumps as Yuri shoulders his way in, addicted to the heat of the fire going in the fire place and the smell of something spicy simmering away in a pot.

 

  
  
“Come on in,” the man says uselessly –Yuri’s already in, his coat shed and his blades detached. Another man appears then, his hair silver like winter morning light –Viktor?- and smiles at him, his mouth shaped like a heart.

 

  
  
(Ugh.)

 

  
  
“Welcome!” He says excitedly. “I’m Viktor! Viktor Nikiforov! But you can just call me Viktor. Or maybe Vitya? I –“

 

  
  
“I’m Yuri,” he says, mostly to shut up him.

 

  
  
“Well that’s no good,” Viktor replies with a frown. “There’s already a Yuuri, so I guess we’ll have to call you Yurio!”

 

  
  
“No!”

 

  
  
The first man –Yuuri, he thinks with a snarl- smiles at him apologetically. “Please, join us for dinner. We’ve been expecting you.”

 

  
  
That throws him off.

 

  
  
Fake-Yuuri sets a bowl of something delicious and steaming down in front of him and gives him that stupid smile and before he realizes it he’s sitting down and falling into the food with gusto. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was, how desperate he’d been for something warm. When he bites into the meat his eyes widen.

 

  
  
“It’s called katsudon,” Other-Yuuri tells him. He’s smothering a grin behind his hand, but Yuri doesn’t care.

 

  
  
(It’s perfect.)

 

  
  
After he’s fed and rested, Viktor coaxes a story out of him –his story. He gladly talks about his grandfather’s warmth, and about Otabek’s quiet strength, and Yakov and Lilia’s kindness and support, and Mila’s generosity. His voice starts small but in the end he fills the room with the people who have loved and helped him along the way, strong and unwavering.

 

  
  
Name-Stealing-Yuuri puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes when he finally runs out of words.

 

  
  
“The Snow King did not mean for any of this to happen,” Viktor says quietly. “But that doesn’t negate the fact that it will be difficult to bring Otabek back. Once someone is under that kind of influence, only a certain kind of power can break it.”

 

  
  
“How do you know, old man!?”

 

  
  
“I know the Snow King; we used to glide along the frozen lakes together, once upon a time. He’s really just a big old softy. See, his girlfriend left him,” Viktor says, laughing at the look on Yuri’s face.

 

  
  
“I –all of this, just because of a _girl_?!”

 

  
  
Even Phony-Yuuri laughs at his outrage.  


 

  
“Stop laughing! You’re just a sham walking around with my name!”

 

  
  
(Viktor wheezes.)

 

  
  
“Wait, back up. Did you say there’s a power that breaks the spell Otabek is under? What is it?” Yuri hesitates. “How… How can I get it?”

 

  
  
He wants nothing more than to get his friend back. He’s traversed thousands of miles and given months and years to the mere hope of it –of seeing Otabek’s small, reserved smile, and the little wrinkle that appears between his brows when he’s thinking hard about something. He misses the sound of his voice and the way his mouth shapes Yuri’s name. He misses sitting in the flower boxes and sharing the sunshine with him.

 

  
  
He’ll do anything. He’ll sell his soul if he has to.

 

  
  
“Oh, Yuri,” Maybe-Okay-He-Supposes-Yuuri murmurs. Viktor wraps an arm around his shoulders and hums in contentment. He’s looking at Yuri with that look –all soft edges and sweetness, like this boy he doesn’t even know is someone he already treasures. “You already have the power inside you.”

 

  
  
❀  
  


**In the Palace of the Snow King**

 

 

There’s probably a certain appeal to it -to the Snow King’s palace.

 

 

It’s large and imposing, the only structure he can see across the barren white landscape. Powerful and strong. Built with compressed blocks of snow that glitters like pure diamonds in the weak, watery sunlight. It’s sterile and clean and, he supposes, beautiful.

 

 

To Yuri though, it just seems empty. Unfeeling.

 

 

Lonely.

 

 

The sun’s rays don’t really  _ penetrate _ this far north; they barely light his way, and they certainly don’t warm his skin. It makes Yuri think of Otabek, and how much his light brown skin had loved the summer. He wonders how pale he is now, how cold. If he misses his home, or even remembers what the flowers in their flower boxes had looked like as their petals warmed in spring. 

 

 

He wonders what kind of King he will find when he goes inside but, more importantly, what kind of person he will find in Otabek.

 

 

That thought halts his steps, just inside the massive gate.

 

 

What if Otabek doesn’t remember him? Or worse, what if Otabek does remember him and wants nothing to do with him? How heartbreaking, to come all this way, to traverse the miles and the years just to turn around and be forced to go home without his -

 

 

He takes a deep breath and puts one foot ahead of the other. The walk from the gate to the tall double doors is short but exposed, and he can’t help but wonder where the guards are when no one interrupts him. He presses his palms to the ice-doors and they swing open with twin creaks. He doesn’t try to make a quiet entry, thinks that there’s probably no point and besides, he’s never been one to hide.

 

 

He meets no one as he stomps his way through the halls, hears no sounds except his own footfalls. The perfect stillness is almost eerie, but then snow dampens sound and feeling with precision -and maybe that’s the point. He walks confidently with no idea where he’s going, and is relieved when his feet take him to what looks like a throne room.

 

 

It’s vast and far more opulent than anything else he’s seen thus far, the walls and floor made of clear ice instead of snow. There is detailing on the walls that look like glittery murals, and a chandelier hanging from the tall, tall ceiling made of icicles and cold-burning candles. But his attention is stolen away, and his breath leaves his body like a punch when he catches sight of who’s in the room with him.

 

 

On the other side, sitting slumped next to the throne itself, is Otabek, his face blue and still and his body wrapped in a thick robe of ice.

 

 

Yuri is moving before he realizes, his feet slipping and sliding across the floor. He falls to his knees and ignores the sharp bruising pain of them, and his hands flit all over, touching Otabek’s cheek, his hair, his frozen arm. His pretty brown eyes are closed and his skin is cold and pale, almost blue. He looks older, grown with the years just like Yuri, but it’s undeniably him. Yuri’s eyes sting and his breath comes out like a Gatling gun -sharp, staccato, quick. He’s found him at last, god, he’s right here in front of him and he’s perfect and he’s -

 

 

Not waking up.

 

 

“Beka,” he whispers. His hands settle on Otabek’s cold shoulders and he shakes his friend’s prone body. A little louder: “Beka. Otabek.”

 

 

Nothing.

 

 

The panic truly begins to set in, and he realizes with dawning horror what it means to be so cold and still.

 

 

Oh, god. No.

 

 

Someone approaches him from behind, and lightning-quick he pulls out his ice skates and jerks around, snarling, ready to protect his friend from any perceived threat.

 

 

“Whoa wait! Stop! I’m not here to hurt you!” A man with dark hair and even darker circles around his eyes is standing in front of him in full regalia, his hands thrown up in a universal sign of surrender. Yuri doesn’t lower his skate. The man eyes it nervously. 

 

 

“My name is Georgi, I’m the Snow King. I’ve been trying to help your friend for years, but nothing I do is working.”

 

 

Yuri stares at him.

 

 

“Noth -” Yuri has to clear his throat a few times to get his voice to come out right. “Nothing?”

 

 

“It was my fault. My betrothed left me, you see, and I was so upset and bitter, and the tears that I cried were filled with that bitterness and sorrow, and I accidentally flung them out into the world. I had no idea this would happen. But your friend attached his sled to my carriage one day, and I recognized the look of bitterness in his eye so I brought him to my palace to try to help him. But -I -well.” He gestures helplessly to Otabek’s stiff body, and Yuri can fill in the blanks.

 

 

_ I couldn’t help him _ .

 

 

Yuri thinks of the way Otabek smiled at him that first time they met, of how warm his little hands were, and how gently he touched the flowers in the springtime. He thinks of the sound of Otabek’s laughter like soft bells, and the smell of his hair, and the warmth of his skin even in the winter. The thought that all of that is  _ gone _ -that he’ll never see the smile in Otabek’s eyes again, or hear the way his voice formed Yuri’s name- is the most exquisite pain. 

 

 

He is too late.

 

 

The sob that rips out of him surprises him. He tries to stifle himself, tries to press both of his palms over his mouth to keep it inside, because Yuri doesn’t cry, but, well, he is now. He is crying in earnest now, fat, salty tears rolling down his cheeks and dripping off of his jaw, his nose. His crying is messy and loud in a way that should embarrass him; it makes him feel like the child he was when Otabek first disappeared into the vast coldness of winter. 

 

 

Yuri is eighteen years old when he loses his best friend.

 

 

“I’m sorry,” he chokes, and presses his nose into Otabek’s icy hair. He slides an arm around his shoulders and pulls him against his heaving chest, headless of the cold that burns his skin. “I’m so, so sorry.”

 

 

“I’m sorry,” someone says, their voice rough and gravely. “Yuri -”

 

 

“Please,” he whispers.

 

 

“Yura, you’re -too tight -”

 

 

“I love you,” Yuri cries, flinching as his voice echoes. “Please don’t leave me.”

 

 

“I won’t.”

 

 

“Good, you  _ better _ not, you -”

 

 

Behind him Georgi gasps, and there is a cool, damp palm sliding along his cheek and into his hair. He’s afraid to open his eyes, because this is too good to be true. This is the kind of thing that happens in the fairy tales his grandfather tells him at bedtime, not to people like him. But the hand against his skin is warming up -or maybe it’s leeching the warmth from him, but either way it doesn’t matter; it’s real and alive, its fingers are charting paths across his cheekbone and down along his jaw, pushing his long blond hair out of his face with a tenderness that makes him tremble.

 

 

He thinks about what Viktor and Nice-Yuuri said to him, just before he’d gone out the door -

 

 

_ “Love and courage, Yuri. You can do _ anything  _ with love and courage.” _

 

 

-and opens his eyes.

 

 

Otabek looks back at him. His body is shivering, feeling the cold for the first time, but his eyes are steady and warm.

 

 

“I love you too, Yura.”

 

 

Georgi cries for the first time in years, but this time it’s out of happiness.

  
  


**The End.**

 

❀

 

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr at my main blog [@katsukifatale](http://katsukifatale.tumblr.com) or my writing blog [@trumpet-geek](http://trumpet-geek.tumblr.com) for more quality content lol.


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